Cultural Professions in Modern-Day Russia: Statistical Portrait of the Workers

In this study, we aim to provide a statistical portrait of employment in the cultural field with regard to occupations on the Russian labor market. The data from the ‘Comprehensive Monitoring of Living Conditions’ are used to illustrate the main differences in the socio-demographic and occupational characteristics of culturally employed respondents and other professional groups. Additionally, the most relevant factors that may have an impact on individuals’ probability to be cultural workers are analyzed. Our study is based on the theoretical frameworks of U. Beck, R. Florida, J. Urry, and Z. Bauman. We also consider the possible Soviet legacy of the contemporary Russian culture, which may interconnect with labor conditions in this field, using S. Fitzpatrick’s works. We also provide an overview of other relevant studies. Our findings show that a larger number of cultural workers among the respondents are librarians, archivists, teachers of music and art schools, linguists, museum workers, journalists, and writers. The results on the statistical portrait display that on average, the cultural workers are highly educated married women in their forties or older who live predominantly in the largest regions of the Russian Federation (Moscow and Moscow region, St. Petersburg). Almost three-quarters of the group have relevant education. They are mostly regular full-time employees with a daytime work schedule. We have also found that the most influential factors for becoming cultural workers are the region of residence and relevant professional education.

Psychological Causes of Corruption: The Role of Worries

This study is devoted to answering two questions: (1) Do individuals’ worries and sufferings correlate with the acceptability of corruption from their perspectives? (2) Does this correlation differ by country in terms of corruption levels? We focus on analyzing the correlation between macro and micro worries, on one hand, and individual acceptability of corrupt behavior, on the other hand. This study is based on the data from the 6th-wave World Value Survey. We identified three groups of countries based on the corruption perception index: countries with low-level corruption (Australia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and Sweden), countries with medium-level corruption (Belarus, China, South Korea, Malaysia, and Romania), and countries with high-level corruption (Russia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Thailand). For the purposes of our analysis, we used structural equation modeling. We have found that macro and micro worries are significantly correlated with the acceptability of corruption. Our analysis shows that the more the people worry about themselves or their families, the more they accept corruption. The people who worry about society are more likely to disapprove of corruption. However, the significance of these links varies, depending on the group of countries. For the countries with low-level corruption, the correlation is significant only for the link between micro worries and the acceptability of corruption. The countries with high-level corruption show a significant correlation only for the link between macro worries and the acceptability of corruption. For countries with medium-level corruption and for Russia, the acceptability of corruption is significantly correlated with both micro and macro worries.

A Loosening Grip: Why Do Autocracies Engage in the Neoliberalization of Their Welfare Sectors?

Despite the wealth of studies on neoliberalism, research on why authoritarian states engage in processes of neoliberalization remains scarce. Therefore, our article seeks to explore why autocracies use neoliberal power practices, which, as suggested by Foucauldian governmentality approach to neoliberalism, are understood as governance techniques aimed primarily at disciplining and controlling populations through promoting the free market as a key form of societal organization. Empirically, these power practices can manifest in a state’s withdrawal from the provision of welfare services. However, scholars have argued that control over the public sector is essential to the maintenance of authoritarian regimes, and hence, governments must have compelling reasons to opt for its neoliberalization. In this study, we employ three mutually nonexclusive theoretical perspectives that suggest incentives that may motivate autocrats to retreat from the welfare sector; these are the authoritarian legitimation, authoritarian modernization, and political economy perspectives. By means of a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we tested the foregoing theories on a sample of 42 autocracies active during 1980–2005. The results revealed that authoritarian modernization theory has the highest explanatory capacity, as it identifies two distinct pathways to public sector neoliberalization—internal and external policy considerations or one of the two—while the political economy perspective was an important theoretical concern in several cases. Overall, our paper contributes to research on the governmentality approach to neoliberalism and serves as a departure point for further investigations into neoliberal authoritarianism.